Review of Hospital Wage Data Used to Calculate Medicare Payments

Hospitals report wage data annually to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which is then used to calculate wage index rates to account for different geographic area labor market costs. Prior OIG wage index work identified hundreds of millions of dollars in incorrectly reported wage data and resulted in policy changes by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services with regard to how hospitals reported deferred compensation costs. We will review hospital controls over the reporting of wage data used to calculate wage indexes for Medicare payments (SSA §§ 1886(d)(3) and 1886(d)(3)(E)).

Announced or Revised	Agency	Title	Component	Report Number(s)	Expected Issue Date (FY)
Completed	Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services	Review of Hospital Wage Data Used to Calculate Medicare Payments	Office of Audit Services	A-01-17-00510; A-01-17-00500; A-01-17-00509; W-00-16-35452; W-00-17-35725; various reviews	2020